


Love Is Its Own Reward

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Character Study, Declarations Of Love, F/F, Frustration, Gen, Minor Character Death, Misses Clause Challenge, Original Character(s), Past Relationship(s), Politics, Relationship Problems, Relationship Study, Romance, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 20:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2595470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon events from Florence Banner's POV, with a few original touches. Flo thinks about her two great loves, Nancy and Lilian, and how different they are, and of her hopes for a better world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is Its Own Reward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queen_ypolita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ypolita/gifts).



> Dear recipient, I hope this is something close to what you wanted. It was enjoyable to write as Flo is one of my favourite characters and I hope I gave her a little more depth in my fanfic treatment of her character. Many thanks to my beta who wishes to remain anonymous.

Sometimes, Florence Banner found herself reflecting now and again, it was frustrating to love a girl like Nancy. A handsome, if awkward at times, sort of young woman; a person who was generous enough at heart but who occasionally displayed a type of stubbornness and selfishness that set Florence's teeth on edge. 

She had been like that from the absolute beginning - displaying such an interest in Florence from that very first startling glance from an opposite balcony, across from the building where Florence was helping to celebrate finding accommodation for a family in need. And then she had not shown up, as she had promised to do, to meet for ice-creams before the Women and Labour lecture that Florence was so eager to attend. Florence had been fortunate indeed to have met Lilian on that fateful night of the lecture, but she had been rather put out at first that Nancy had not arrived as she had given her word that she would. When Nancy had later confessed about the time she had spent at Felicity Place with that Diana Lethaby woman, Florence had of course not been thrilled with the revelation. More because of how thoughtlessly Nancy had neglected not only Florence herself, but also Nancy's former landlady Mrs Milne and that landlady's simple but good-hearted daughter Gracie, people who had cared for her so, than because of the short life of decadence and lazy luxury she had gone on to lead. And then there was more to Nancy's wretched past - the whole business of Kitty Butler and how Nancy had thrown over her very own family to become Kitty's sweetheart. Kitty, Florence ardently believed, seemed an even more dreadful sort of woman than Diana Lethaby, who Nancy had referred to as "a kind of devil" had been. Insisting on sneaking and hiding, thinking that her love for Nancy and Nancy's love for her was something to be ashamed of. Forcing Nancy into being so careful as to be living a lie... and then abandoning her for a man, for the sake of a life that could be lived in the light of day but was, in the end, in Florence's opinion, no small lie in itself.

A lie that Florence could never bring herself to tell others or herself, from her earliest youth.

It had been girls, and only girls, who had stirred Flo's heart and senses for as long as she could remember, She had never felt guilty about her loves, and did not care to cringe and hide in the manner of Kitty Butler. Others could take Flo as they found her, as far as she was concerned. Her older brother Frank had never approved, of course. Once he had even clouted Florence after one of her she-suitors had called for her. Mary, perhaps, or Ethel? No, Judith. It must have been Judith, with her broad shoulders and cropped hair and slender, slim-hipped frame that looked so ungainly in ladies' frocks. She had liked to "come the uncle" as Florence and her fellow toms later put it, and of course it must have been she with her masculine but still distinctly womanly presence who had set Frank off in a rage. Nancy reminded Flo a little of Judith in some ways, more in form than face and temperament. 

Thankfully, she did not remind her of Lilian in too many physical ways, though there were similarities to their life-stories here and there. To look upon another and see Lily's beloved face would have been too heartbreaking to bear. Lily had not been her lover in the sense of bodies being joined, but their minds had communed so deeply. Florence longed for such communion with Nancy's mind, but was such a thing even possible? Sometimes Flo believed it might come to pass, but there were moments when Nancy seemed quite a stranger to Flo.

"My comrade for ever." Those were the words that Lily had used to describe Florence. Nancy and Flo had decided to kiss forever, but comradeship did not seem to describe what they had, any more than the grand romantic passion of stories throughout the ages did. Nancy had helped her with work for the causes, and had thrown so much enthusiasm into assisting her with the Workers' Rally, but she had done it more out of concern for Florence wearing herself out, and because it was the done thing in the Banner household to labour thus, than for the good of the cause. 

That seemed to be the basis of Nancy's kindness of heart, more than anything - a focus on the welfare of those closest to her, which was a fine thing, to be sure, but there was so much more to work for!

Florence had told Nancy that she had liked to think of her as Venus in the painting with the sea-shell, newborn from the foam as a full-grown woman, but of course she could not be. She was so good and kind - loving and caring towards Ralph and little Cyril, working so hard to cook and clean and care for the people she considered her new family, and of course concocting such delicious oyster-suppers, dishes so divine that Florence believed them to be the sort of fare that might be served in Paradise. 

And yet, Nancy was exasperating, in the worst possible ways, from time to time. Comparing the absolutely sublime and passion-stirring poetry of Walt Whitman unfavourably with the kind of childish verse scribbled on lavatory walls. Asking Flo why she bothered to labour at all for socialism, for the poor families and all her causes, when in Florence's opinion the reason why was patently obvious. 

Flo laboured because it was the right and only thing to do.

Her sense of justice was not born from the self-righteousness that spurred the ladies of wealth and privilege that Flo sometimes came across in her labours to work for the poor and dispossessed, the people at the margins of society. Her passion was not an act of charity, and to Flo there were no "deserving" and "undeserving" among those she urged to stand strong, the ones she helped so they could some day help themselves. Everyone had the right to a chance at a better life - the drunkards who took to the bottle in despair at their lot in life and the gay girls who lived as they did because they had no other choice as well as the struggling families. She had even tried to explain it to Nancy - her conviction that the world could be a better place than it was, that the harshness of life could be sweetened and that love was indeed its own reward. Her kind of love and hope for a better world was not an endless task. Steps were being made in the right direction with each striving, every effort of Flo and those like her, and although they were but small steps, they were progress nonetheless. Feeling despondent and hopeless, giving up in the face of large struggles was not an option for Florence Banner when better things could surely be achieved!

Perhaps Nancy, her beloved Nance, had learned a little of what all of this meant to Flo. They had fought at the Rally, over Nancy's past, and Flo had made her cutting remark about Nancy not meaning the words of the speech she had helped Ralph with. But Nance had done the right thing in the end. She had sent Kitty away when the unthinkable had occurred and her former great love had reappeared and begged to be taken back. 

And most importantly, she had told Flo how much she loved her.

Perhaps Nance would never be a comrade in the sense that Lily had been, but together, she and Flo could still help to build the better world that both of them surely desired.


End file.
